January 7, 2009

The greatest strengths of Dennis Felton are his high sense of integrity and his relentless work ethic. Felton genuinely works his ass off trying to make the Georgia Basketball program better. If you're drawing up requirements for a successful coach, those would be two of the first handful of attributes that you'd seek.

Unfortunately for us, recruiting, game management and player inspiration would be pretty high on that list, too. Those are areas where Felton is not as strong.

Last night, Georgia continued its track record under Dennis Felton of complete ineptitude on the road. I can sort of deal with being talent deficient, but it's awfully hard to swallow watching a team lose because they lack consistent hustle or play dumb.

If you are outrebounded on the offensive glass 23-10, that's a hustle issue. Particularly, when your front court is the strength of your program, and you're playing a team that won't finish in the upper half of the ACC. When you consistently give up 18-28 turnovers, that's an issue of basketball intelligence. Both of those are coaching and recruiting problems.

You can't get beat on loose balls and surrender 4th chance offensive rebounds to your bitter rival. You just can't.

I've noticed a trend with Felton teams the last couple of years and it continues this year. We were leading at half in 4 of our 6 losses. One of those losses we retook the lead after half only to lose it again. To me this boils down to coaching and adjustments. I swear I can remember countless games the last three years where we out play and scheme a team in the first half only to look totally inept in the second half.

Our players don't believe they can win - that's the biggest issue. When they get challenged, they back down & wilt. That's a motivation issue & for the most part (with the exception of the sec tourney last year) its been there all along under Felton.

We have good excuses/reason for our basketball ineptitude at Ga. While I do think Felton is a better coach than Hewitt he just can't evaluate talent or recruit it. Honestly, how many of our players are really D1 top level players. Howard Tompkins and thats it. And he needs to get a lot stronger and more agressive. Our point guards should all be at Ga Southern or Ga State and none of our reserves are any better. So who recruited them?

At least we don't have to pretend to be a basketball School in a Basketball league and have Paul Hewitt as our coach. For that I guess we can be thankful. (He is a nice guy though)

What a debacle. Tech can't hit the broad side of the barn and we still lose even after leading by 12 with 12 minutes to go??? Hmmm.....sounds just like the Missouri game. Basketball 101: Learning to Break the Press. Seriously, this should be taught this week. Felton got an execution stay by the Governor by winning the SEC tourney and he has done NOTHING with it. There is no excuse he can give as to why we are this bad. Also, how is it possible that our PG is shooting less than 50% from the FT line?? Unbelievable.

Did anyone else watch the game on FSS? Was it just me or were the announcers cheering pretty heavily for Tech to win? Even the commercial break highlights were of Tech when they were down 13 points....

I truly believe Felton wants whats best for the kids as well as Georgia and wants to do it the right way. That being said, he just isnt an SEC caliber coach. He struggles recruiting and thats obvious. But in year 6 against a bad tech team we can't break a token press on 3 straight possessions. We can't get the ball in bounds and Felton begings to vigorously clap as if thats what we wanted to do. We don't make a bucket outside of a lay-up or free throw for the last 15 minutes of the game. And we try our damnest to not run any sort of offense. All stories that haven't changed in 6 years. Once again I appreciate what Felton tried to do but if Georgia wants to be taken seriously as an all-around athletic program Felton has to go no matter what the outcome with Favors might be.

Felton is just a poor coach. Our team is like a bunch of little kids out there playing. No intensity, no basketball IQ. Felton is such a hard-headed taskmaster that he simply does not resonate with the kids.

Arkansas last night played with ferocity and max effort. They made smart plays when it mattered. Pephrey has been there for one season and one month.

Basketball is not that hard. Thompkins is a great talent, but he will never be fully utilized under Felton.

Could Albert Jackson handle the ball any worse without thumbs? I have never seen a D1 athlete not be able to field the most rudimentary pass or rebound. It is really sort of amazing.

Free throws.

Eithe Woodberry is too hurt to play, or he is the laziest basketball player on earth. He got beat no less than 7 times on loose balls/rebounds.

You never dribble into the corner against the press. I played b-ball to 8th grade, used to practice that EVERY DAY IN 8TH GRADE!!!!!

Felton is simply an incompetent boob. Whoever inherets this job next year will have a pretty good nucleus of players to work with. They will need a skilled PG and a decent outside shooter, and that should be it.

BTW, Paul Hewitt should be getting some serious heat from the Gtu fans. If it werent for some scrub named Peacock, Gtu would have lost by 10+ to a terrible UGA team. They start 3 5* recruits and are terrible. I think both programs may be hiring new coaches in March.

I said it in a previous comment on an earlier thread and I will say it again. Not only are we bad, but so is the rest of the SEC. It is probably the worst major conference in basketball. Have you seen some of these teams that have beaten an SEC opponent?

Also, Favors was totally smart to not sign early and wait until Spring. Both of the coaches from last night's game will be gone and he can then open up recruiting again. I predict he goes out of state to either UK or an ACC school like Clemson, NCST or Wake.

That was horrific - for both teams. It was the toilet bowl of basketball. Reminds of the mid-90's UGA-gatech.edu football games. One team won, but it was more like one team just lost.

You would think the coach of a team with that many problems would just pick one to fix. Take turnovers: if Georgia could only reduce turnovers, it might actually win despite being nearly totally inept in so many other ways.

Here's a list for the program: (1) Fire Felton today; (2) Promote some assistant to be the interim coach; (3) Gather money to pay a real coach to come to UGA; (4) Hire real coach and give him TOTAL control of the basketball program; (5) Ask him if he would like a new basketball arena; (6) Build new arena and implode Stegeman.

"Particularly, when your front court is the strength of your program, and you're playing a team that won't finish in the upper half of the ACC."

1) You wouldn't finish out of the basement in the ACC

2) Maybe you didn't notice, but the front court is the strength of Tech too. Lawal was a five star recruit by scout and is probably going to be a top 10-15 pick in the NBA draft, possibly as early as this year. Peacock was a solid 4 star PF, and Aminu was a top 5 recruit at his position (C) coming out of high school.

Y'all have Woodbury - a 3 star nobody who won't play in the league, and Thompkins - a decent three or four year starter who will probably go early second round of the NBA / late first. What Thompkins WILL BE in three years, however, is not the same as what he is now - the fourth best big man on the court. He wouldn't even start for Tech. So yes, while your big men may be your "strength," big men are also the strength of Tech - a far better team (and far better big men). The fact that you couldn't beat them on what may be their worst shooting performance on the season (36% field, 9% threes) is pathetic (and had nothing to do with any defense played by UGA).

Ha. Love the Tech guy arguing the day after that we suck. No shit. Really? But there is some bad news by little friend: Tech will have the same record as UGA does at the end of the season. So, please go out into traffic and enjoy this gift of a victory, and prepare prepare yourself for another 12 losses in conference. To the victor goes the spoils of mediocrity, enjoy two more years of Hewitt.

Anon Tech Fan at 12:55, you are an idiot and that's official. Yes Lawal is a pretty decent player. But to 10-15 player? Not even close, he won't sniff the top half of the first round, this year or ever. I watched him play in HS as well and I don't think he has ever made a shot that was farther than 6 inches away from the rim. Also, Aminu was only the 10th best center out of HS, that's not top 5. As far as Peacock, go take a look at Rivals. He was not and never will be a 4*, simple enough. Enjoy your victory lap Techie, for it will be the last in quite a while. Neither of these tow basketball teams is any good. Suck it up and deal with it, our complete ineptitude in the last 15 minutes of the game allowed you all to get back into it. It was given, not earned.

@anonymous - not to get into a pissing match, but Lawal is pretty much a lottery pick in every mock draft you can find. The guy is a heck of a basketball player. GT has a good to very good frontcourt and a dismal mess of a backcourt right now.

fwiw - Thompkins is damn good too. He's going to be a high NBA draft pick when he decides to leave (probably after next year, I would guess)

3) FWIW, I agree Thompkins is solid, but I don't think he will go pro until at least a junior - he's too inconsistent right now and needs to develop many facets of his game. That's almost better than a player like Lawal though, you get Thompkins for four years. At the game last night he was legit the fourth best big man on the court. He's only a freshman though so its not that bad.